SCHOFIELD BARRACKS, Hawaii -- Hale Kula Elementary School families traveled to a galaxy far, far away when they attended the school's Book Fair and Beyond Family Night, here, Sept. 16.
Centered around a space theme, children traveled from station to station to complete science/space-themed activities.
Soldiers from the Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, 25th Infantry Division, were among volunteers running the various activity stations. They cheered students on at an obstacle course, helped them fold paper airplanes and assisted with food service and cleanup.
"The Soldiers really make an event of this scale possible," said Ellen Petry, facilitator, Parent Community Networking Center. "We had more than 350 people at the event, which is a great turnout."
During family night, students drew extraterrestrial creatures, spaceships and planets on a lunar landscape and created a cratered surface, like the moon's surface, at the impact crater station. They also explored the principles of aerodynamics and tested their skills against gravity at the egg drop station. The students constructed a 3-inch square covering for their raw eggs, to see if the eggs would withstand a 4-foot drop.
John Epstein, science resource coach, counted down to the egg drop, where many students proved to be gravitational gurus with packing materials like popcorn, paper and even a water balloon.
A local organization, Stars Above Hawaii, brought in high-powered telescopes so families could gaze at stars, star systems and constellations.
Greg McCartney from Stars Above Hawaii said "it was a good turnout" and that "everyone seemed to enjoy it."
Families could view multiple star systems like Alberio, Mizar and Polaris. They could also see lagoon and ling nebula, Scorpio, the blizzard of stars in the center of the Milky Way and specific stars like Hokulea, Antares and Vega.
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